LOS ANGELES – Carolyn Weirick told a jury on Wednesday what it felt like to be summoned to a doctor’s office because her condition was so serious they wouldn’t tell her about it over the phone.
“I lost it,” she said. “You’re driving and it’s like you’re driving to your death sentence. It’s devastating.”
Weirick was told she had mesothelioma, a terminal disease.
“You say to yourself I have maybe two years. It’s hard. I’m terrified all the time of dying.”
Weirick is suing Johnson & Johnson alleging the talc baby powder she used for decades contained asbestos that caused her to develop mesothelioma. Her case is one of hundreds across the country filed by women against the cosmetic talc giant most alleging the powder caused them to develop ovarian cancer.
Coverage of the trial in the Los Angeles Superior Court is being streamed courtesy of Courtroom View Network.
Weirick’s mother Leilani testified first in a filmed deposition taken in February. The 87-year-old mother of the plaintiff recounted her history of using Johnson & Johnson talc powder.
“What are we doing here today?” an assistant to the plaintiff’s attorney asked.
“Trying to find out exactly what occurred in regards to Carolyn,” the elder Weirick replied.
“Who was responsible for your laundry in your home?” the attorney’s assistant asked.
“Who do you think?” Weirick said, meaning herself.
Weirick said she had four children with her husband Allan over a five-year period in the 1950’s including Carolyn.
“Did you change the children’s diapers?”
“Of course,” Leilani Weirick said. “I was very fussy. I would always wash them, then use (baby) powder and put on the diaper.”
“Were you using cloth diapers?”
“Yes,” Weirick responded.
“How did you actually apply the powder to your children?”
“I held it (bottle) up and shook it like a salt shaker,” Weirick said.
“What brand of powder did you use?”
“Johnson & Johnson,” Weirick responded.
“What did the air look like when you shook the J&J powder?”
“White fluffs in the air,” Leilani Weirick answered.
In this trial and former talc trials against Johnson & Johnson, plaintiffs’ attorneys have sought to argue that talc powder can linger in the air to be breathed for an hour or more. In addition they have claimed the asbestos in the powder has a “latency period.” Asbestos fibers can remain in the body in the lungs unknown for decades before causing a cancerous tumor to grow.
Weirick estimated she diaper-powdered her daughter Carolyn as an infant perhaps six times a day and twice at night. The mother used baby powder as well, also an adult Johnson & Johnson product called Shower to Shower. Both mother and daughter continued to use the baby powder for years.
“Did you ever see the word asbestos on any of the containers of Johnson & Johnson you purchased?” Weirick was asked.
“I don’t recall,” she said.
“Would you have used talcum powder containing asbestos on Carolyn if you knew it caused disease?”
“No,” Weirick said.
Carolyn Weirick, 59, the mother of three boys, had worked as a lobbyist, realtor and educational therapist for young students when she noticed a shortness of breath in 2016.
“I was getting out of breath just walking from one part of my house to the other,” she said. “It scared me.”
She went to her doctor who called her in for an X-ray and reported back that fluid had filled her right lung. She was sent to a pulmonologist and the fluid was drained to discover the cause. The diagnosis remained uncertain while the fluid returned.
“I could feel it filling up again, it was terrifying,” Weirick said. “The doctor said they had found something he didn’t like.”
“When you were told it was mesothelioma, tell us how you reacted emotionally?” Jay Stuemke, Weirick’s attorney, asked.
Weirick said she had arranged for a friend to call and notify her of the diagnosis as that was easier than hearing it from a nurse.
“I was devastated,” she said. “I felt my whole life is over. I had to try and figure out what to do.”
She and her family members searched for the best surgeon they could and found a doctor in San Francisco.
“I was told I needed a surgery to remove the pleural lining (lungs) that had the tumors,” she said.
Weirick said when she told doctors she had no history of being around construction sites but had used talc baby powder, they nodded their heads knowingly.
“I found out about talc from three doctors,” she said.
“How did that make you feel?” Stuemke asked.
“Just devastated,” she answered. “I had given this (disease) to myself. I didn’t know. I would have used corn starch instead.”
Weirick underwent major surgery and spent days in the hospital. She said the pain was intense.
She said she has not told her sons she has mesothelioma.
“I haven’t told my boys, I lied to them,” she said. “I just told them I had some cancer and I had surgery and I’m okay now.”
Nevertheless, she said being in pain and unable to do as much has been hard for her sons to understand.
“They say ‘you’re always in your room,'” she said. “As a mom I’m more brittle. I try not to be. I’m doing my best, but I don’t hug them as much anymore.”
The attorney for Johnson & Johnson Chris Vejnoska briefly questioned Weirick at the end of the day quizzing her about her family history of cancer. Her father had died from prostate cancer and his sister had colon cancer. A grandfather had also developed cancer.
Defense attorneys for Johnson & Johnson in past talc trials have sought to show that women who contracted cancer did so because of an inherited family history of the disease and not talc use.